A Model for the Apparent Gas Permeability of Shale Matrix Organic Nanopore Considering Multiple Physical Phenomena

The flow of shale gas in nano scale pores is affected by multiple physical phenomena. At present, the influence of multiple physical phenomena on the transport mechanism of gas in nano-pores is not clear, and a unified mathematical model to describe these multiple physical phenomena is still not available. In this paper, an apparent permeability model was established, after comprehensively considering three gas flow mechanisms in shale matrix organic pores, including viscous slippage Flow, Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion of adsorbed gas, and real gas effect and confinement effect, and at the same time considering the effects of matrix shrinkage, stress sensitivity, adsorption layer thinning, confinement effect and real gas effect on pore radius. The contribution of three flow mechanisms to apparent permeability under different pore pressure and pore size is analyzed. The effects of adsorption layer thinning, stress sensitivity, matrix shrinkage effect, real gas effect and confinement effect on apparent permeability were also systematically analyzed. The results show that the apparent permeability first decreases and then increases with the decrease of pore pressure. With the decrease of pore pressure, matrix shrinkage, Knudsen diffusion, slippage effect and surface diffusion effect increase gradually. These four effects will not only make up for the permeability loss caused by stress sensitivity and adsorption layer, but also significantly increase the permeability. With the decrease of pore radius, the contribution of slippage flow decreases, and the contributions of Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion increase gradually. With the decrease of pore radius and the increase of pore pressure, the influence of real gas effect and confinement effect on permeability increases significantly. Considering real gas and confinement effect, the apparent permeability of pores with radius of 5 nm is increased by 13.2%, and the apparent permeability of pores with radius of 1 nm is increased by 61.3%. The apparent permeability model obtained in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for more accurate measurement of permeability of shale matrix and accurate evaluation of productivity of shale gas horizontal wells.

Modification of the Redlich-Kwong-Aungier Equation of State to Determine the Degree of Dryness in the CO2 Two-phase Region

The degree of dryness is the most important parameter that determines the state of a real gas and the thermodynamic properties of the working fluid in a two-phase region. This article presents a modified Redlich-Kwong-Aungier equation of state to determine the degree of dryness in the two-phase region of a real gas. Selected as the working fluid under study was CO2. The results were validated using the Span-Wanger equation presented in the mini-REFPROP program, the equation being closest to the experimental data in the CO2 two-phase region. For the proposed method, the initial data are temperature and density, critical properties of the working fluid, its eccentricity coefficient, and molar mass. In the process of its solution, determined are the pressure, which for a two-phase region becomes the pressure of saturated vapor, the volumes of the gas and liquid phases of a two-phase region, the densities of the gas and liquid phases, and the degree of dryness. The saturated vapor pressure was found using the Lee-Kesler and Pitzer method, the results being in good agreement with the experimental data. The volume of the gas phase of a two-phase region is determined by the modified Redlich-Kwong-Aungier equation of state. The paper proposes a correlation equation for the scale correction used in the Redlich-Kwongda-Aungier equation of state for the gas phase of a two-phase region. The volume of the liquid phase was found by the Yamada-Gann method. The volumes of both phases were validated against the basic data, and are in good agreement. The results obtained for the degree of dryness also showed good agreement with the basic values, which ensures the applicability of the proposed method in the entire two-phase region, limited by the temperature range from 220 to 300 K. The results also open up the possibility to develop the method in the triple point region (216.59K-220 K) and in the near-critical region (300 K-304.13 K), as well as to determine, with greater accuracy, the basic CO2 thermodynamic parameters in the two-phase region, such as enthalpy, entropy, viscosity, compressibility coefficient, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity coefficient for the gas and liquid phases. Due to the simplicity of the form of the equation of state and a small number of empirical coefficients, the obtained technique can be used for practical problems of computational fluid dynamics without spending a lot of computation time.

Direct Numerical Simulation of Real-gas Effects within Turbulent Boundary Layers for Fully-developed Channel Flows

Real-gas effects have a significant impact on compressible turbulent flows of dense gases, especially when flow properties are in proximity of the saturation line and/or the thermodynamic critical point. Understanding of these effects is key for the analysis and improvement of performance for many industrial components, including expanders and heat exchangers in organic Rankine cycle systems. This work analyzes the real-gas effect on the turbulent boundary layer of fully developed channel flow of two organic gases, R1233zd(E) and MDM - two candidate working fluids for ORC systems. Compressible direct numerical simulations (DNS) with real-gas equations of state are used in this research. Three cases are set up for each organic vapour, representing thermodynamic states far from, close to and inside the supercritical region, and these cases refer to weak, normal and strong real-gas effect in each fluid. The results within this work show that the real-gas effect can significantly influence the profile of averaged thermodynamic properties, relative to an air baseline case. This effect has a reverse impact on the distribution of averaged temperature and density. As the real-gas effect gets stronger, the averaged centre-to-wall temperature ratio decreases but the density drop increases. In a strong real-gas effect case, the dynamic viscosity at the channel center point can be lower than at channel wall. This phenomenon can not be found in a perfect gas flow. The real-gas effect increases the normal Reynolds stress in the wall-normal direction by 7–20% and in the spanwise direction by 10–21%, which is caused by its impact on the viscosity profile. It also increases the Reynolds shear stress by 5–8%. The real-gas effect increases the turbulence kinetic energy dissipation in the viscous sublayer and buffer sublayer <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mi>y</mml:mi><mml:mo>∗</mml:mo></mml:msup><mml:mo><</mml:mo><mml:mn>30</mml:mn><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo></mml:math></inline-formula> but not in the outer layer. The turbulent viscosity hypthesis is checked in these two fluids, and the result shows that the standard two-function RANS model (<inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><mml:mi>k</mml:mi><mml:mo>−</mml:mo><mml:mi>ϵ</mml:mi></mml:math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><mml:mi>k</mml:mi><mml:mo>−</mml:mo><mml:mi>ω</mml:mi></mml:math></inline-formula>) with a constant <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><mml:msub><mml:mi>C</mml:mi><mml:mi>μ</mml:mi></mml:msub><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>0.09</mml:mn></mml:math></inline-formula> is still suitable in the outer layer <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mi>y</mml:mi><mml:mo>∗</mml:mo></mml:msup><mml:mo>></mml:mo><mml:mn>70</mml:mn><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo></mml:math></inline-formula>, with an error in ±10%.

Vaneless Diffuser Performance in a Super-Critical Carbon Dioxide Centrifugal Compressor With Real Gas Effects

Super-critical Carbon dioxide (s-CO2) flows are neither incompressible nor ideal gas flows. Unlike perfect gases, the enthalpy of s-CO2 near the critical point is a strong function of pressure. Incorporation of these effects is necessary for accurate modeling of flows in centrifugal compressor vaneless diffusers. This study reviews the existing vaneless diffuser modeling technique, and modifications are made to incorporate real gas effects. Like the existing procedure, the proposed formulation does not require multiple iterations for convergence. The results are obtained in a single step using a marching technique. Hence, this model can be incorporated in standard centrifugal compressor design and analysis tools, especially for super-critical carbon dioxide flows, subject to experimental validation.

Preliminary Aerodynamic Design of a S-CO2 Axial Turbine

Axial turbines are gaining prominence in supercritical carbon-di-oxide (S-CO2) Brayton cycle power blocks. S-CO2 Brayton cycle power systems designed for 10 MW and upwards will need axial turbines for efficient energy conversion and compact construction. The real gas behavior of S-CO2 and its rapid property variations with temperature presents a strong challenge for turbomachinery design. Applying gas and steam turbine philosophies directly to S-CO2 turbine could lead to erroneous designs. Very little information is available in the open literature on the design of S-CO2 axial turbines. In this paper, design of a 10 MW axial turbine for a simple recuperated Brayton cycle waste heat recovery system is presented. Three repeating stages with nominal stage loading coefficient of 2.3 and flow coefficient of 0.37 were designed. An axial turbine mean-line design method tuned to S-CO2 real gas fluid medium is discussed. 3D blade design was made suing commercial turbomachinery design software AxSTREAM. The turbine was designed for inlet temperature of 818.15 K, pressure ratio of 2.2, rotational speed of 12000 rpm and mass flow rate of 104.5 kg/s. 3D CFD simulations were carried out using the commercial RANS solver ANSYS CFX 2020 R2 with SST turbulence model for closure. S-CO2 was modelled as real gas with Refrigerant Gas Property tables generated over the appropriate pressure and temperature ranges using NIST Refprop database. CFD studies were carried out over a range of mass flow rates and speeds, covering the design and several off-design conditions. The performance maps generated using 3D CFD simulations of the turbine are presented. The geometrical parameters obtained with the mean-line design matched well with that of the 3D turbine design arrived using AxSTREAM. It was observed that the turbine produced 10 MW power at the design condition while passing the required mass flow. CFD studies also showed that the preliminary turbine design achieved a moderate total-to-total efficiency of 80 % at the design condition. The design has potential for further optimization to obtain improved efficiency and for reducing the number of stages from three to two.